


Warning Sign

by PoliticalPadmé (magnetgirl)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s05e20 The Wrong Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/PoliticalPadm%C3%A9
Summary: Anakin asks Barriss Offee for answers she's not ready to give.





	Warning Sign

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadows_of_the_force](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadows_of_the_force/gifts).



> Thank you to Moebius and spectrefives for a quick beta and allowing me to babble at them!

She feels him before she sees him. Feels sorrow. And fury.

Barriss has always been sensitive to emotions in others. It’s why she prefers books to people. Everyone thinks she's cold, detached- but if she wasn't, she'd drown, sink under the weight of everyone else's emotional baggage.

It's also how she learned of the corruption within the Order. The creeping Darkness that surrounds them, infects them. It tastes like ash and feels like a fever.

"Why," he snarls, more a demand than a question.

She raises her eyes, chin, shoulders. Slowly, deliberately meets his dark gaze. Anger and grief pulse in the space between them. Fueling them both. Polluting them both.

"Why," he says again, spitting the word at her and she flinches despite herself.

"I told you-"

"No."

The force of the denial startles her into silence. He looks down, gathers his anger and forces it away like a good Jedi. Barriss presses her lips into a flat line. Anakin lifts his eyes.

"Why her? Why _Ahsoka_?"

She frowns.

 

_They would believe it._

They did believe it, as she knew they would. Ahsoka, and her master, are not like they rest. They are newborn stars in a sky full of dying giants. They refuse to pretend they don't care. They bend rules. Hardly a leap to believe they would break them.

The Council- the giants -accept evidence, which Barriss could provide, and Ahsoka's, and her master's, protestations only made her look more guilty. _I chose Ahsoka because it was easy._

 

_She was too close._

Ahsoka was her friend. He might think that should have saved her, but it doomed her. She cared too much, offered too much of herself, encouraged closeness, invited more. What does any Jedi know of love? Enough, Barriss thinks, enough to know it must be set aside. Abandoned. Murdered. _I chose Ahsoka because I was scared._

 

_I wanted to be caught._

Anakin would never give up on his padawan. His being here, asking for answers no one else requires, is proof of that. She needed an audience to make her point. She needed a platform. No one would listen to Barriss Offee. She's nobody, nothing. One padawan among many, with no talent for war. Quiet. Bookish. Little more than a shadow on a wall.

But Anakin Skywalker? Not only a celebrated warrior, Jedi Knight, and General in the Grand Army of the Republic, but a close friend to high ranking politicians and a legend in his own time. The Chosen One. The Hero with No Fear. Skywalker's voice echoes throughout the galaxy. And he wears his heart on his sleeve. He practically dared her to exploit it. _I chose Ahsoka because I needed you._

 

All of these answers are the truth. None are the whole story.

"You wouldn't understand," she answers finally, her voice low and heavy, her eyes weary.  

Anakin frowns. Barriss waits for the explosion she senses, for his fury to consume her. She's not afraid. She might welcome it. But the storm doesn't come.

"If you had reached out to her, told her how you felt. . . We could have helped you."

Her eyes narrow. They are pretty words. Kind words. And empty.

"Helped me destroy the Jedi?" she scoffs.

Anakin's eyes are sad as he answers simply and finally. "No."

A long silence grows between them.

She was not taught to reach out, nor to express her feelings. She couldn't then and she can't now. She is the warning sign and the explosion. She understands suddenly, and too late, so is he. 

Anakin walks away.


End file.
